


your name here

by spiritphones



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Misgendering, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22179331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritphones/pseuds/spiritphones
Summary: A little something about Max’s childhood.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	your name here

**Author's Note:**

> max puckett trans
> 
> anyways warning for misgendering of a character pre-coming out but he is accepted when he figures himself out

Once upon a time, your name had been Maxine.

It had always been too heavy in your baby sister’s mouth, too weighted, so from the day she’d learned to talk and never stopped, you had always been Max. It was the same with your dad- he thought it was proper, formal, and if he ever said your full name it was in a mock teacher’s voice, like an uptight substitute reading it directly from the roster and not listening when you corrected them. 

But your mom... your mom loved the dang name. She  _ loved  _ how heavy it was on her tongue, she loved the weight and girth of it, she loved to punctuate the X with a half-snarl of her teeth. She loved the way it settled on the back of her throat when it was done, as if it was a story she’d just finished telling. She said it meant “noble,” it meant “greatest.” The name was your mom’s idea; totally, completely hers. Not that your dad hadn’t weighed in, of course, but the name so clearly came from  _ her  _ lips, so surely sprouted from  _ her  _ mind, that it seemed impossible to think of it as a joint effort at all.

She respected you when you insisted on being called Max, of course. She always respected you on those kinds of things. She let you wear shorts and cargo pants to school every day, and let you do boy stuff with your friends, and she let you and dad blow up hot dogs in the microwave “for science” every once in a while. And she called you Max. But sometimes she didn’t, like when you were at family gatherings and your relatives were asking you when you’d start wearing pretty dresses for them like a good girl and your skin started feeling hot and itchy all over, or when she was angry that you’d gotten detention for parkouring on the school playground again. Then it was Maxine this, Maxine Puckett that. You didn’t know why that bothered you, because duh, it was your name, but- but still. It made your body go all heavy and it made you want to run and run until you couldn’t anymore.

Your mom- she was good, though. She was the best mom you could ever ask for. She showed you how to weld, and how to sew, and how to clean up your cuts with hydrogen peroxide, and how to cook spaghetti. She even let you cook all on your own, sometimes, without anyone breathing down your neck. She wasn’t even mad when you burned the noodles.

When she found you in the bathroom on your first day of fifth grade, with all your hair chopped off raggedly and the blue kitchen scissors clutched in your shaking fist, she wasn’t even mad. She told you later that you had looked like a warrior when she came in, but you knew what you really looked like: pitifully fierce, tear tracks and set lips, first-day sweater covered in chunks of brown hair, clenched fists and a heavy heart.

She’d comforted you, then, called you in sick (“spewing her guts out,” she said, with a wink in your direction), and made you some potato soup. She helped you make your hair look less like an impulse chop, and she shampooed it when she was done- she swept up the hair, and stuck your brand-new sweater in the wash, and then she sat and held you.

You cried, fat blubbering embarrassing tears, and she let you and held you and you wish-

You wish she never let go.

You miss her.   
  
  



End file.
